Brent Seabrook escapes doghouse to play Game 7 overtime hero for Blackhawks

Final Western Conference playoff tilt for Red Wings-Blackhawks ends with dramatic flair

Chicago Blackhawks' defenceman Brent Seabrook (center) celebrates with his teammates after scoring in Wednesday's Game 7 overtime of the NHL Western Conference semifinal series against the Detroit Red Wings. The Blackhawks won 2-1.

Photograph by: Nam Y. Huh
, The Associated Press

CHICAGO -- The rivalry didn’t want to let go.

The long goodbye after 87 years of close proximity needed to be longer. A Game 7 to punctuate the end of their relationship just wasn’t enough for the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks ... so they had to settle the final Western Conference playoff series they will ever contest with overtime.

Someone’s heart was bound to be broken — it was Detroit’s.

Brent Seabrook picked up a puck jarred loose by David Bolland’s neutral-zone hit on Wings’ rookie Gustav Nyquist, skated over the Detroit blue-line and beat Jimmy Howard with a wrist shot to the glove side at 3:35 of overtime to give the Blackhawks a 2-1 victory and a berth in the Western Conference Final against the Los Angeles Kings, beginning here Saturday afternoon.

Of all people, it had to be Seabrook, the Canadian Olympic team defenceman from Tsawwassen, B.C., who spent the first part of the series in coach Joel Quenneville’s doghouse, coming through in the end. You might say he’s redeemed himself, and then some.

“I don’t know if I saw it go in, to be honest,” Seabrook said. “I just heard the horn going and saw the boys jumping out. It was a pretty exhausting game, but I think I was more tired during the celebration with guys jumping and pushing me in the face and dragging me down. It’s exciting. You don’t get to do that too many times.

“We did have some learning curves in this round,” said Seabrook, who had been demoted to the third Chicago defence pair for the first four games but was reunited with Keith in Game 5.

“Detroit played a great series. We really had to find ourselves after the fourth game.”

On the game winner, Seabrook’s shot brushed against the skate of defenceman Niklas Kronwall and changed direction ever-so-slightly, just enough to fool Howard, who played a wonderful series, as did his counterpart, Chicago’s Corey Crawford. The Hawks outshot Detroit 35-27 Wednesday.

Howard skated over to Kronwall to console him after the puck went in.

“That says a lot about him as a person,” Kronwall said. “Everybody wants to win in here, you don’t make a mistake on purpose. Unfortunately, it went off me and went in and we’re going home. I wish we could have won that series for Howie — he really deserved it.”

The difference in the game, as in the series, was razor-thin. But the Blackhawks, down 3-1 in games before coming all the way back, gained energy and momentum as the series wore on.

“I’m happy for Seabs, happy for the guys,” said Hawks coach Joel Quenneville. “I commend the guys for their attitude, the belief in the room after Game 4 was there. We had to find a way, but the last two games were tightly fought, amazing games. Give Detroit credit, it was a tough, long series and we were on the ropes for quite a while.”

Even when they appeared to have scored the game winner with 1:47 left in regulation, though — Nik Hjalmarsson converting a pass from Andrew Shaw, touching off the deafening United Center foghorn, sending 22,103 fans into delirium — the moment was nullified by offsetting penalties behind the play, called an instant before the puck entered the net by trailing referee Stephen Walkom.

“We forgot about it. We came into the overtime and it was a new game. We were excited, and we felt fresh for it,” said Seabrook. “I think we’ve found our game in the latter part of this series and we’re looking forward to getting (the conference final) started.”

There was no feeling-out process in this one.

The teams went right at each other’s throats from the start, as befitted their first Game 7 meeting in nearly half a century.

The Blackhawks took the physical route from the get-go, delivering big hits on Pavel Datsyuk and Kronwall, who was hurt the entire series, and knocking Wings’ Val Filppula out of the game on his second shift when Chicago’s Andrew Shaw slew-footed and injured him in a skirmish near the benches. The Finnish centre was already on crutches before the first period had ended, forcing Detroit coach Mike Babcock to lean on Henrik Zetterberg and Datsyuk for extra duty for the balance of the game.

The Hawks began the middle period on 15 seconds of carried-over power-play time, and just stayed on the gas pedal until Hjalmarsson spun and rifled a 100-foot pass that found Patrick Sharp streaking through the middle. Three pretty passes later — Sharp to Michal Handzus to Marian Hossa and back to Sharp, who whipped it past a helpless Howard — Chicago had the lead.

The Red Wings looked spent in the second period but got sudden life in the opening minute of the third when a poor pinch at his own blue-line by defenceman Johnny Oduya allowed Dan Cleary to chip the puck past him to Nyquist and create a 2-on-1 break.

Nyquist made a nifty pass across to Zetterberg, who had an open net for the tying goal, and — thanks to that whistle by Walkom, who could scarcely ignore a full-blown cage match at the Wings’ bench between Detroit defenceman Kyle Quincey and Hawks’ Brandon Saad — that score held through the end of regulation.

“I couldn’t see what happened in the pileup, it was happening below my bench,” said Babcock, “but these games are hotly contested, they’re hard to officiate. If this were a regular-season game it would be a parade to the penalty box all night with all the things that go on out there, but that’s what makes them so much fun.

“I was disappointed we lost Fil early, we could have been a lot more dynamic. But we battled hard, pushed them real hard the whole series, and had a lot of fun doing it.

“Those Game 7s you dream about when you’re a kid, you’re the one that scores, not them.”

The Hawks’ victory ensures that the last four winners of the Stanley Cup — Pittsburgh (2009), Chicago (2010), Boston (2011) and L.A. (2012) — are the last four teams alive in the chase for this one.

Games 1 and 2 of the series will be played back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday, squeezed in between two Rolling Stones concerts Friday and Monday.

Chicago Blackhawks' defenceman Brent Seabrook (center) celebrates with his teammates after scoring in Wednesday's Game 7 overtime of the NHL Western Conference semifinal series against the Detroit Red Wings. The Blackhawks won 2-1.

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